


Tomorrow, When the Fire Came

by hemimetabolism



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Death, End of the World, Loss, M/M, Overall just bad, Possibly triggering idk I'm sorry, Rough Sex, Sad, Smut, Wildfires, Wine was had, booo, just bad, seeking comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-12 00:37:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15327888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hemimetabolism/pseuds/hemimetabolism
Summary: As fires took over the world they knew, Kuroo and Kenma found there was no place left to run.





	Tomorrow, When the Fire Came

**Author's Note:**

> Half my county seems to be on fire today, and as I walked home from work at 7AM this morning the the sky was orange and the smell of fire filled my nose and thus this fic was born. I'm having a bad day, I'm sorry to take it out on you guys. There is no happiness in this fic. I wrote it out in two hours without looking it over. You have been warned. 
> 
> English is not my first language, geh.  
> *Title ripped off of John Marsden's book, "Tomorrow, When The War Began". (Great book much recommend)

“How bad is it?” Kenma asked quietly as Kuroo returned. The black haired man sat down next to him, brows etched in a frown, one Kenma wished he could magically wipe off his face somehow. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen him smile since the fires had begun spreading.

“We can stay another day…” He replies, absent-minded, looking down at his watch. “They’ll come back.”

“Kuroo… “ Kenma tried, this very same conversation being one they’d had every night for the past two weeks.

“It’ll be fine, the wind is on our side.” Kuroo said quietly, silencing Kenma’s protests.

Kenma remained quiet, knowing that fighting wouldn’t amount to much. Instead, he moved to sit behind the taller, his legs spread by his sides, hands gentle on his shoulders pulling him to lean back into his chest.

“Okay.” Kenma says quietly as Kuroo relaxes into him, his lips coming to place little kisses of comfort to his temple, nudging his nose to his cheek from behind as a soft sigh escaped his lips, a feeling of dread hanging over him. “We’ll wait for them.”

Kuroo swallowed, eyes tearing up yet again as he reached up to grip a little at Kenma’s sleeve, wishing he knew better how to show his gratitude. He knew it wasn’t fair of him to make Kenma wait when they could get a well needed head start on the fires closing in, but he refused to leave without his friends, his brothers. Not if there was any chance still of them coming back home.

“Were packed, right? Good to go?” Kuroo asked for the ninth time that day, his voice cracking a little.

“We’re good baby.” Kenma said quietly right by his ear, keeping his voice calm and collected for the others sake, despite the panic in his gut. He wrapped his arms tightly around the older. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

The pair silenced as they sat and watched the fires slowly devour the world they had once known, coloring it angry tints of orange and red, the blue sky Kenma loved colored black from the smoke.

 

* * *

 

It had started months back, the fires. It had been on the news, supposedly spreading at an alarming rate, no one had really thought much of it until the evacuations begun.

One city became ten, the fires were untameable, leaving no life in its wake as it destroyed the world and everything in it. Without realizing, they were surrounded by fires from all points of the compass, with no way out, with nowhere to go.

Their friends had been traveling before the news had broken out. Bokuto and Akaashi, the pair having been raised in the same orphanage as Kuroo and Kenma. Bokuto and Kuroo had been inseparable from the age of 3, always by the others side, through thick and thin.

Until the day he’d met the raven haired boy that had taken his breath away Kenma hadn't had much to live for, so when Kuroo asked him to wait, Kenma waited patiently, providing what little comfort he could in his lovers time of need.

 

* * *

 

Another 36 hours had passed when Kuroo finally agreed it was time to go.

And so they wandered in silence, with little food and the fires close behind, aiming for the most northern part of their hometown, near the foot of a mountain.

The hiking trips they’d gone on in the past seemed like a distant memory now, as if from another life.

 

* * *

 

It was the day they reached base camp that Kuroo began to die.

They'd found huge boards as they entered the grounds, the boards plastered with IDs and lists of confirmed casualties. Kenma’s eyes had been roaming the rows of faces when Kuroo had let out the most deafening cry to his left.

Kenma felt his chest constrict to the point he could barely breathe as he watched the love of his life fall to his knees, validating their worst fears as he screamed ‘no’ over and over.

He stumbled over, brain barely able to remember how to properly walk his throat closed off completely as he saw the unmistakable white and black hair of Bokuto in one of the photos. As he continued to scan the rows he found Akaashi just two rows down, their student IDs taped to the board, plastic edges melted from heat.

They were all confirmed dead in the early stages of the fire outbreak.

They’d waited for nothing, and now it was too late.

Kenma fell to his knees next to Kuroo, arms coming around his broad shoulders as he did his best to hold him from behind, unable to speak still, unable to process the information gathered, terrified that two out of the three reasons Kuroo had said he needed to keep on fighting were dead, gone, taken by the fires.

 

* * *

 

Kuroo is silent for days following the news, and it takes everything in Kenma’s power to talk him into just drinking some water. He’s quickly losing hope and will, the vacant state in his lovers eyes killing him just as slowly as the lack of food intake was trying to take the other.

Maybe starving to death would hurt less than the fire, Kenma found himself thinking.

The little news they got were grim, and the silence in the camp was deafening. People knew the end was coming. There was no place to run to anymore, only fires beyond the fire, with no people left to fight them.

The gods of the earth, if they existed, had decided to extinguish the human race just like that, and here they were seeing the last, horrifying moments of what had once been a beautiful place to exist.

 

* * *

 

With each day passing Kenma’s desperation to find his lover in the empty shell next to him grew.

“Baby, please,” Kenma pleaded, stripping the other out of his clothing, having dragged him to a secluded part of the forest, in need of comfort, in need of anything. “I need you,” He says, eyes prickled with tears as he grinds down on top his lap. “It’s been so long,” He breathes quietly against his cheek, placing loving kisses down his jawline and neck. “Let me feel you,” He begs, before leaning down.

He pulls him out and takes him into his mouth, eyes fluttering at the salty taste. They hadn’t cleaned in God knows how long but none of that mattered anymore. He worked on him, finally getting his body to respond.

“Baby,” He whispers, beginning to strip out of his own clothing, pulling at the other until he falls on top of him. “Take me like you always did,” He breathes against his lips, and while the act would seem erotic in their normal lives, the underlying meaning was clear to them both.

_Show me that you’re still here._

The disgustingly human act seemed to wake something up in the older, and Kenma felt him finally begin to respond to him. It was desperate, it was gritty, there was not an ounce of love making in their act as Kuroo took Kenma. It was merely an act of dying to feel human, to feel like the world still accepted the human race as part of its own, despite everything.

Kenma gritted his teeth as Kuroo pushed inside, some spit and a Vaseline lip balm being the only thing available to serve as lubricant. The other hadn't had the energy to prepare him, and Kenma had insisted he didn't care. Kuroo groaned as he buried himself inside of the other, the tightness overwhelming yet the pleasure he normally felt when they got together feeling like it was buried under layers of thick sand. He struggled desperately to feel anything again, his movements so rough and so selfish Kenma knew he’d be sore, but none of that mattered now.

Kenma gripped onto his shoulders, trying desperately to find his lover in the shadow of a man on top of himself. At times he’d see him, he’d see terrified eyes peer through that ever present look of despair, he’d hear little breaths littered with praise and love, before they disappeared into a hoarse cry. Kenma lived for those fragments, for those moments when he felt _his_ Kuroo, that’s why he allowed this, that’s why he braced himself for the pain, that’s why he’d do anything to keep the other feeling if only just a little bit human. He knew the last thing Kuroo wanted was to hurt him. Kuroo would never.

“I love you,” Kenma breathes against his neck as Kuroo fucks him. “I love you,” He repeats it like a mantra, over and over, desperate for the other to feel him there, to know he’s not alone. “We’ll be okay,” Kenma whimpers, eyes fluttering as Kuroo brushes over his spot, the pain momentarily blurred by some kind of rivaling pleasure. “Baby, we’ll be alright,” he continues to reassure, and Kuroo groans into dirty blonde strands, his pace speeding up tearing a low growl from his throat before he smashes their lips together, uncontrollable tears trickling down his face mingling in with their kiss.

Momentarily Kenma can feel it, his strength, his will to survive, his love for him. Momentarily, Kenma can feel his best friend, his lover, his soulmate. Momentarily, this is all worth it as Kuroo finally falls apart, filters and layers crumbling as he comes undone, Kenma just moments behind.

 

* * *

 

“Where do you want to die?” Kuroo had finally asked one day, breaking another few days of silence, Kenma having been quietly resting on his shoulder.

There was a new form of acceptance forming in them both, and in a sense, knowing the end was coming and accepting the fact provided them with a strange feeling of much needed relief.

“What about the top of the mountain?” Kenma said quietly, letting a hand slide in under the tallers T-shirt, resting it on his chest where life still made itself known. “The smoke would take us in our sleep.” He said quietly. “It wouldn’t hurt.”

“Yeah… Okay.”

He can feel a tear trickle down his cheek. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. This wasn’t how they were supposed to end. Their countless promises of a long, full life together, of adopting every cat in the street, of buying a house and having Bokuto and Akaashi buy the one next door.

Their dreams, their lives, they weren’t supposed to go up in flames.

Kenma was filled with regrets of all the things they never did, of all the places never seen, of all the memories they never had a chance to make.

As the thoughts invaded his mind, Kenma became unable to keep it together. Tears continued to trickle down hollowed out cheeks, and little sniffles turned into full sobs, the loud, ugly kind that echoed in any unjustified humans soul.

It was then Kuroo seemed to wake up a little, and he wrapped his arms tightly around the smaller man, peppering his forehead and cheeks with little kisses, his lips chapped and dry but nonetheless managing to help soothe the gaping hole in Kenma’s heart, even if only just a little.

“I miss you,” Kenma cried, clinging to his lover as he sobbed into his neck, his mouth, his chest. “Come back to me Tetsurou,” He pleaded. “Don’t leave before I do,”

Kuroo held him as tightly as he possibly could, his heart breaking over and over for everything they had yet to experience. “I’m here, Kenma, I’m here..” He breathes, and Kenma is allowed to be the one to fall apart for once.

“I don’t want to die, Tetsurou,”

Kuroo held him in silence, eyes squeezing shut.

“I’m not ready,” Kenma spoke his sorrows one after the other, unable to keep them locked up. “I want more time with you,”

“I’m not finished,”

“I wanted our forever.”

 

* * *

 

Two days later, the pair had made it to the top of the mountain, exhausted, curled up close, having shared one last bottle of wine.

“We'll have our forever, kitten,” Kuroo whispered close to Kenma’s ear as he felt the air thicken with smoke, slowly filling his lungs. “Just not in this world.”

Kenma cried silently, his hands roaming gently over Kuroo’s face and neck, desperate for his warmth, for him.

“Wait for me on the other side,” Kuroo hushed him, feeling how Kenma’s little touches began to slow down, his body growing heavier on top of him.

“You go now.”

He said, his voice the warmest it had been since the fires had become a real threat, Kuroo finally finding the acceptance within himself to let go of this life. To let go of his brothers, to let go of Kenma and everything they were supposed to have been.

Kenma drew his last breath, while Kuroo used his for the last words he’d ever speak.

“I’ll be right behind you,”

“I promise.”


End file.
